


On the Proper Time and Place

by circa1220bce



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, John has a Temper, M/M, Sherlock & Irene are Best Frenemies Forever, Suicidal Thoughts, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-17 17:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10598769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/circa1220bce/pseuds/circa1220bce
Summary: John shakes his head. And it's insane, everything about this is insane, but there's only so much proof a bloke can ignore. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.” He spreads his arms. “This is—my god, this is real. This is—You’re Sherlock Holmes.”“Do you make a habit of stating the obvious and then endlessly repeating it?”“Only when I’ve just traveled over a hundred years into the past.”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HBingo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HBingo/gifts).



> Written for the 2017 Fandom Trump Hates auction. Thank you to HBingo for donating to a good cause!!
> 
> Fic based on the following prompt: 
> 
> AU in which ACD!Watson never existed and the novels were told from the perceptive of ACD!Adler, Holmes’ reluctant part-time flatmate and frienemy. John grew up having been read the stories and ever since he was a child he’s had a secret crush on Sherlock Holmes.
> 
> After he gets back from the war John feels horribly unwanted and just wants to be somewhere he actually feels needed and useful - he goes to sleep wishing for it. He wakes up with a penknife to his neck as ACD!Adler asking him what he thinks he’s doing in her bed. Somehow he goes from that to being dragged into a case with the actually real-life Sherlock Holmes - who is everything John has ever dreamed and more.

John Watson has always had Sherlock Holmes.

From when he was a boy with skinned knees and a perpetually sunburned nose, forgetful drunkards for parents and an older sister already fast following their footsteps, to a harried student hurrying through the halls of St Bart’s under a pile of heavy, dense medical textbooks, to a weary captain barking orders under the Afghanistan sun right up until the pain hits and he’s spinning and can’t pinpoint when or how he went from standing to sprawled on the ground spitting sand and blood, or from there to the cold, sterile hospital room.

When he was a lovesick fool doting on his latest girlfriend or boyfriend, when he was pissing about with the rugby lads, when he got that Dr before his name and knew he was going to make the world a better place.

When he was nursing his latest heartbreak, when the lads starting shipping overseas and not making it back home, when his patients didn’t always last through the morning.

When John was at his best, the world was always brighter for that extra presence in his life. And when John was at his lowest, lonely and contemplating the bottle and hating himself for it, well, he never felt truly alone.

Even now, back home with nothing to show for it but a limp and an ache in his shoulder and a foul disposition, wallowing away his days and his money in his depressing little flat, there is a spark in John’s heart when he thinks of his lifelong companion.

He pulls open the drawer of his little rickety desk in his rickety little flat and takes out a well-loved book, faded and dog-eared near to death and the spine so creased the book could fall apart any day, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’s had to repair it. The book originally belonged to his parents. They’d read it to him when he was still in the crib, and though he couldn’t have understood a word of it, they told him that when he got fussy reading to him that book was the only thing under the sun that would make him stop crying and be quiet, for god’s sake. Would tease a smile and a giggle out of him, even. When John was old enough they’d simply handed him the book, and it became John’s most treasured possession.

He brushes his thumb over the title.

_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ , as chronicled by Mr Irving Adler.

There are two other items of note in his desk drawer: a journal, every page blank, and his Sig Sauer.

Some days he reaches for the journal. He’ll open to a random page and tap his pen against it and feel the mounting frustration and despair as he comes to the same inescapable conclusion: What has he to write about? Nothing. Not like anything ever happens to him. He’ll lose an hour or four staring at the crisp white pages mocking him. _You’re used up and drained dry_ , they seem to say. A hollow man who can’t fill up his own mind, let alone have enough left over to write down. He’ll return the journal, as blank as ever, and slam the drawer shut. He’ll think briefly about making an angry call to Ella, telling her that her advice is shite, but he won’t actually bother to. She’ll just be infinitely calm and reasonable and try to persuade him to make another appointment, and he’s had quite enough of that, thanks.

Some days he takes out the Sig Sauer. He’ll strip it down and clean it thoroughly and reassemble it with ease, his hands swift and sure with muscle memory while his mind drifts away. He'll think about his Hippocratic oath and how natural the gun feels in his hand. He'll lose a bit of time just considering the weight of the metal and comparing it to the weight in his mind. Thinking. But that always gets tucked back away, too. Sometimes with more reluctance than he’s willing to admit.

But most days he reaches for the book and chooses a story at random and loses himself in the brilliance of Sherlock Holmes.

John knows the man's official history, of course, or what little is known of it for such a notable man (John may be slightly biased as regards to the extent of Holmes' notoriety). Holmes was by all accounts a private man who kept few if any confidants outside of his biographer Adler, about whom even less is known. Holmes famously solved the murder of the man's sister, but anything more of the circumstances of their acquaintance is unclear. Contemporary accounts even disagree on whether Holmes and Adler were the closest of companions or the greatest of enemies (though do seem to agree that it was definitely one or the other, with nothing in between). His clients praised him and cursed him in equal measure but were almost universally reticent about disclosing the details of the affairs with which Holmes had assisted them, which made sense to John; no one had called upon Holmes because they were having a good day. Historians who specialise in the life of Holmes think it was by the influence of his brother Mycroft, himself a reclusive figure, that Holmes' personal life was kept out of the public eye and history, both. All of which meant that if Adler had not come along and written his stories, Sherlock Holmes may have not even been a footnote in history. Especially as, once Alder abruptly stopped writing in eighteen-ninety-seven, the only further account is that Holmes retired 10 years later to a little cottage in Sussex, where he lived in reclusion until his death in the late nineteen-twenties. No one knows what became of Adler.

Most accounts say that such a lonely end was fitting and unsurprising for such an aloof man. Adler often characterised him as a machine—an unfeeling man who craved and loved nothing but his work.

John, frankly, thinks that's bollocks. He's read the stories forwards and backwards, and if you ignore Adler's editorialising and focus on what Holmes actually _did_ , what he actually _said_ , Holmes was a man smitten with life and knowledge and who loved using his passions to help people. He was _sweet_ and _joyful_ and it was the time in which he lived, the people around him, that forced him to ever act otherwise.

John thinks the person who understood that the least was his own biographer.

That probably isn't a fair assessment. After all, Adler wrote in all those details that led John to his conclusion. That led to John's childhood infatuation, which he may still be harbouring three decades later. Maybe Adler meant for people to see the side of Sherlock Holmes that John sees.

Or maybe Adler was a cock and fuck him.

...John may have always been a little jealous of Adler.

John's initial motivation to pursue his doctorate may have been based on the thought that if there are indeed men like Sherlock Holmes still around, and if he should ever have the good fortune to meet one, what they really need by their side is a man with a solid head on his shoulders who knows how to patch a wound as well as to create one. Not some useless, sarcastic, perpetually unimpressed bystander like Adler, who seemed to spend more time despairing of and disparaging Sherlock Holmes than being of any assistance.

John may have once been embarrassed about how much Sherlock Holmes meant to him, back when he was younger and stupider and didn’t know just how insignificant a thing like that rated when compared against all the ways the world can break a man down.

He may thank god he has this one, good untarnished thing in his life every time he opens his desk drawer and considers: Journal, gun, or book?

He may worry, during the sleepless nights, when he’s staring at the ceiling and everything aches, that it’s not always going to be enough to fill the hollowness inside him.

“John? John Watson?” a vaguely familiar voice calls out one day, perhaps six months after John’s return; the days all blur together and it's not like he's got a schedule to mind. “It’s me. Stamford! Mike Stamford. From Bart's?”

John isn’t in any capacity to entertain human interaction, had in fact only intended to run a few errands he could no longer put off before escaping back to the flat. But Mike is all inoffensive smiles and gentle but persistent nudges and before he can put a stop to it John finds himself sitting on a park bench beside the man, sipping an overpriced coffee he didn't want and can't really afford.

After 10 minutes of irritatingly polite conversation, John glances at his watch—some fancy smartphone affair Harry had pushed at him; probably half guilt and half so she didn’t have to look at the inscription on the back anymore—and is about to make his excuses when Mike says, “Do you still read those stories? In that one book?”

Glancing sharply at Mike, whose countenance is as blandly congenial as always, John says, “Excuse me?”

“You know. The one you were always going on about. Reading at Bart’s whenever you had half a second to yourself. Some historical account, I think.”

“Yeah,” John says.

Mike snaps his fingers. “Sherlock Holmes. That was it, wasn’t it? 'The escapades of,' something like that?”

John feels himself tensing. It's not like his preoccupation with Sherlock Holmes was ever a _secret_ , though he perhaps attempted to tone down his obvious affection when his parents started demanding to know when he meant to grow out of his childish obsession. Lots of people admire historical figures, even relatively obscure ones, and know every little detail of their lives. It is and was a perfectly fine pastime. Except right at this moment it doesn't feel like a harmless pastime. It feels like the only thing John has _left_. He does not want to talk about Sherlock Holmes. He won't.

So he says again, even shorter, perhaps a little snappish, “Yeah.”

“I read them, once, you know,” Mike says, somehow completely oblivious to the fact that he's waltzing across an active minefield. “Long time ago. Always thought he was a great fellow. Well-meaning, you know. It never surprised me you'd take a liking to him.” He takes another leisurely sip of his latte, like he means to do nothing else all day but sit here holding John hostage. Then, “It was really great catching up, John. Truly.”

Thankfully, not longer after that John is finally able to extricate himself from this excruciatingly awkward conversation (though only John seems to have noticed that it was). As he's walking away, Mike calls after him, “Take care of yourself, John, eh?” Forcing a grimace from his face, John nods at Mike, stiff but as neutral as he can manage before continuing on, leaning heavily on his cane. Christ, but he thinks the leg is getting worse. Just what he needs.

When he's made his way back to the suffocating safety of his little flat, he eats a quick meal that’s dust in his mouth, washes up, and then opens his desk drawer and considers:

Journal, gun, or Sherlock Holmes?

~*~*~*~*~*~

The first time Sherlock encounters the woman is in January of 1881, when he is asked to solve her murder. An all-around unexceptional case at first glance, truth be told, and one to which he turns his attention only at Mycroft’s persistent behest. The preliminary details he’s given point to an unremarkable murder, probably a spurned former lover or a jealous colleague or something equally trite, and a case even the police should be quite capable of solving. Certainly Sherlock hadn’t any interest in traveling to Warsaw for such an affair.

“I do wish you would reconsider,” Mycroft says, his generous bulk so firmly settled into his expensive armchair he may plan to never stand again. “She was the prima donna of the Imperial Opera. Widely beloved for her powerful voice, her charm and wit, and her beauty. The suddenness and violence of her untimely demise is no small matter.”

As if Sherlock doesn't know who Irene Adler is. He never saw her perform but one can hardly be an aficionado of the opera as he is and not at the least know her name.

“I have no doubt that what you say is true,” Sherlock says, settled much less indelibly in his own armchair across from his brother’s. Sherlock’s fingers tap restlessly against the arms. “None of it necessitates my services. I cannot see what of the matter necessitates _your_ own interest. The police will solve the matter. Eventually.”

“'Eventually' is not sufficient. Ms Adler counted some of the most powerful and influential individuals in the world among her most ardent admirers. I would consider it a personal favour if you popped over and wrapped this little matter up.”

“Ah. Are you secretly among her admirers, then? Or perhaps not so secretly at all?” At Mycroft's sour frown, Sherlock shakes his head. “No, brother, I beseech you to beseech someone else.”

Mycroft takes a deep breath, his expression clearly smoothing through sheer force of will. One who does not know him would think he is moments from conceding. Sherlock is not such a person, and so he waits for Mycroft's next move. Mycroft studies the view outside his study window and allows the silence to drag far past the threshold of Sherlock's tolerance, and then he says, “You haven’t had a case in some time, I believe.” Sherlock’s fingers still, hearing every last word that Mycroft does not say about the burgeoning (and heretofore largely unsuccessful) career to which Sherlock has stubbornly dedicated himself. And then the fatal blow: “I worry, you know.”

Sherlock grudgingly leaves for Warsaw the following morning.

The opera house manager swears it was Ms Adler’s brute of an ex-lover. Ms Adler's fellow contraltos blame one another. The conductor swears suicide. And to the man, every last opera staff member tells him, pale and breathless, that it was the opera house ghost, they swear it.

Within a day Sherlock conclusively proves the murderer to be one of the house’s regular patrons. The local police arrest the man, finding copious evidence at his residence, the day after.

With Sherlock's obligation completed, he calls for a hansom to begin his journey home. He is settled and about to signal the driver to move when there's a knock on the window. He pulls aside the curtain and sees a woman in a veiled hat. She lifts the veil and Sherlock is faced with—

The woman.

“Thank you for your assistance, good sir,” Irene Adler says, because it is unmistakeably her. She tips her wide-brimmed hat, turns on her heels, and is out of sight before Sherlock can gather himself to say a single word.

Sherlock goes on with his life and his work. He had managed to avoid having his picture taken by the press during the opera house affair, but his name is in the papers for weeks. His clientele does experience a notable upswing, thank you brother dear. Never enough work, though. Always too many stretches of nothing in between.

When he thinks of the opera house case, he thinks to himself: How infuriating. How _humiliating_. But also: How magnificent. He keeps a newspaper clipping of Irene Adler's obituary among his case files, and he thinks: Well, that is that. He will not see her—or her like—again.

And then, nearly half a year later, there she is in his drawing room.

Sherlock, himself, is on his back on the floor, eyes closed, in loungewear and his dressing gown. He holds his Stradivarius in one hand, the instrument loose under his chin, and his bow in the other, now and then playing a string of notes as he replays his latest case in his mind and mourns the subsequent lack of the slightest matter of interest since.

Business had picked up since the opera house affair, true, but not nearly to the degree necessary to keep a mind like Sherlock’s sufficiently occupied. The resulting paycheque has kept him housed and fed, even allowed him to leave his disastrous flat on Montague Street. But the resulting calls for his services have been tiresome at best. Lords and dukes and sheikhs and other notables whose problems are petty and obvious. He does not have any interest in _titles_. He barely cares about money. If 221b Baker Street ever stretches his finances over-far, he’ll seek out someone interested in a flat-share, or else, more likely, hold his nose and call upon Mycroft, for who would want to share a flat with him?

No, he cares about putting his mind to good use. He cares about the _work_. There is nothing else worth caring about.

He listlessly plays a few notes, and he sighs.

He is not positive how long he has been there, time made unreliable by opium and boredom.

When he hears the front door at the bottom of the stairs open, for a moment his heart leaps. But no, it will not be a client. Clients’ footsteps are uncertain or agitated or hurried or otherwise distinct. And clients rarely have keys to invite themselves in. It’s not Mrs Hudson (the footsteps are too heavy) or Inspector Lestrade (the footsteps are too light) or Mycroft (he probably doesn’t fit through the front door). The footsteps are measured as they ascend the seventeen stairs; confident. Pace as unhurried and confident as if the person were already home.

Sherlock finds himself unable to muster sufficient interest in his guest to stand, so he remains on the floor.

His guest reaches his floor and walks towards Sherlock, steps muffled by the thick rug covered in cigarette ashes and various chemical residues despite Mrs Hudson’s heroic attempts at cleaning. He listlessly turns his head to examine his guest.

He instantly recognises the shoes that halt one step from Sherlock’s face, as they are in fact his own. Sherlock studies the shoes a moment, before drawing his attention upwards and noting equally familiar trousers, waistcoat, winged collar shirt, cufflinks, and hat.

His guest is tall and slim, with hair shorn unfashionably short and face clean of makeup.

The woman.

“Oh, good!” she says, casually stepping over him and seating herself on the nearby settee. “You’re returned. I confess when Mrs Hudson said these spells of yours can last for days I thought her to be exaggerating.”

Holmes plays a few measures of a Wagner, transitions to a touch of Tchaikovsky, and then segues to one of his own unfinished compositions.

As he does, with no further regard for his presence, she takes the newspaper from the table beside her, shakes it open, settles herself further in the chair, and begins reading. He tracks her eyes and notes it is no ruse; she is genuinely focused on the paper. She pauses a moment to ring the bell for Mrs Hudson.

A black mood rapidly descends upon Sherlock, which only blackens further as he stands and quickly stalks around the flat, observing several key, alarming details—most notably that what should be his empty spare room has been suddenly furnished. He returns to the drawing room and takes a seat across from the woman, brows furrowed and fingers steepled under his chin.

“No,” says he.

“Much too late for objections,” she returns, not even lifting her gaze from the paper.

“Hardly.”

“If you’d been in any condition for a civilised conversation four days ago, there may have been a discussion.” She licks her finger and casually turns a page. “But you were not, and so there was not, and as the only person whose mind was capable of rational thought I made a decision on both our behalves. Besides, it would be far too much of a bother to move my affects at this point.”

“This is _my_ home,” Sherlock growls. “And you are sorely mistaken if you believe—”

“Knock, knock!” Mrs Hudson calls cheerfully before coming into the room, a tray in her hands. “Oh, Mr Holmes! How good to see you are back with us. And Mr Adler, a good morning to you as well. Let me just set all this out.” As she busies herself setting out the tea and various assortment of breakfast foods—Holmes’ preferences but also some notable differences, likely the woman’s own requests—she chats away. “I really do think it is wonderful of you to have taken in a boarder. It will be good for you, having someone to talk to instead of that dreadful skull.”

“Mr Holmes is too generous,” the woman says, a hand to her chest. “He brought my sister’s murderer to justice, and now he has opened his home to me. I knew he was a clever man; I hadn’t known him to be a kind one. I am truly overwhelmed.” Sherlock can only gape at her.

He notes, aghast, that Mrs Hudson appears close to tears. “I tell you, my good sir, _I_ knew. I could tell straight away, and Mr Holmes has tried but he cannot convince me of anything different. And I cannot express how it warms my heart that someone else has seen it as well.”

Mrs Hudson finishes setting out their meal and with a fond sigh and a final fond look at the both of them, she bustles out. When Holmes has heard her reach the bottom of the stairs and close the door behind her to the downstairs hallways, Holmes turns on the woman and says, “Think very carefully about the game you are playing.”

“Shouldn’t that be my warning to you? After all, I’ve already got the best of you once, if you’ll kindly recall.”

“A victory few have claimed,” Holmes acknowledges. “And, I assure you, one that no one has claimed twice. What do you want?”

“A place to stay. No more and no less.”

“Why here?”

“Why not?”

“This is Mycroft's doing,” Sherlock says, certain of it.

“I act of my own volition,” she says, which is not a denial.

“And if I force you to leave?”

She nibbles delicately at a biscuit and follows it with a calm sip of tea. She looks him in the eyes and says, simply, “I’ll tell.”

_I’ll tell._

Sherlock feels an uncharacteristic twinge of panic. He has engaged in a large number of— _colourful_ —activities in the name of solving a case. Fourteen possible ends to that sentence present themselves immediately, and a moment’s further thought nearly doubles the number. Eliminating the matters Sherlock personally deems trivial but others might consider a scandal still leaves an unfortunate 10, of which eight the woman could’ve gained knowledge of via her apparently fast rapport with the thoroughly charmed Mrs Hudson. Four of these matters would see him imprisoned, and one would have Sherlock hanged by the neck so quickly that not even Mycroft could intervene in time; and round and sedentary his brother may be, near nothing in London travels faster than a message penned by that hand.

She raises an eyebrow, and once Sherlock’s instinctive alarm abates, her meaning abruptly crystallises.

She’ll tell.

That Irene Adler was not in fact killed, and Sherlock not only knew but is living with her. He would be utterly discredited. He would never work again.

It is a pretty piece of blackmail. Sherlock would admire it if not for his deep distaste for blackmailers, having seen the destruction too often left in their wake. If he set his mind to it, he could ruin her first.

He continues to consider her. She has a tension to her that wasn’t there previously and which worsens the longer Sherlock draws out the silence. Her gaze has become fixed on the paper. He considers the extreme lengths to which she has gone to hide herself. To protect herself. She would tell in a heartbeat to save herself but would take no pleasure in it, of that Sherlock is certain.

And he thinks: Well. Perhaps the skull _has_ been unrewarding company.

“You are never to touch any of my experiments,” he says.

“I would never dream of doing such a thing,” Adler immediately assures him.

“Nor interfere with my work.”

“Of course.”

“Mrs Hudson is to be treated with the utmost respect.”

“I should sincerely hope so.” When Sherlock offers no further terms, she sets aside the paper and leans forwards, something calculated in her expression. “Well,” she says. “Now that that’s settled—I’m most curious about the resolution of this Musgrave Ritual.”

Sherlock startles. He cannot fathom how she could have come by knowledge of that affair, and not knowing is never a feeling that sits easily within him. He vows to not allow it to become one to which he grows accustomed despite overexposure to this vexing woman.

Correctly interpreting his silence, she says, “You’ve been regaling the ceiling about it the past few days. But you never reached the end.”

Well, it certainly _has_ been on his mind. And it really is quite a fascinating matter. And if she believes the way into Sherlock's good graces is through his work—well, she is not wrong. So Sherlock tells her, and she listens intently. She asks quite intelligent questions and makes insightful observations. Something inside him blossoms at her attention and sincere if grudging admiration. Something else inside him shrivels at the nature of her focus, of the feeling of being on the wrong side of a microscope, but he pushes that uncomfortable thought aside. Halfway through his account, she politely asks him to pause, briefly leaves, and returns with pen and paper with which to take notes.

And so: Sherlock gains both a flatmate and a biographer in a single morning.

Adler never outright details her motivations, and Sherlock speculates and deduces but never confirms. She starts with his case files, sifting through them and asking to hear the details, and Sherlock continues to regale her. To _prove himself_ , despite the embarrassing circumstances of their initial meeting. Not long after she begins joining him on cases.

Sherlock will never understand what compelled her to transform one of his cases into a written narrative, nor what compelled the _Union Jack_ to publish the work, nor what compelled anymore to read it and—most confoundedly—clamour for more. Certainly Sherlock only ever gets glazed eyes whenever _he_  attempts to talk about his cases. But soon enough Sherlock’s name becomes known far and wide and he has more clients ringing the doorbell than with which he knows what to do, so he has no inclination to complain.

While Adler became a constant presence in his life, she sometimes disappears for weeks at a time—sometimes in a three-piece suit, other times in a flowery dress and wig. The latter seems an unreasonable risk to Sherlock, but she assured him, “You’re the only one who would notice, and you already know,” and has yet to be proven wrong.

Sometimes when Adler is not around, Sherlock will reread her latest story. They are...interesting. He cannot fault her attention to detail or focus on the puzzle at hand. However, Sherlock is most arrested by the Sherlock Holmes seen through Adler’s eyes.

The Sherlock Holmes in the _Union Jack_ stories is a force. A machine. A brilliant mind that has transcended the petty needs of the body.

The Sherlock Holmes in Adler’s stories is cold.

And as the years pass, and their uneasy companionship continues, and Sherlock feels a coldness seep into his bones even as his devotion to his work borders on the fanatical, Sherlock is never certain whether he sets out to emanate the man in the stories or whether Adler was able to see something about Sherlock before he saw it in himself.

One day, during one of the loathsome times when he is without work, he decides to alleviate his boredom by repurposing a few corpses at Bart’s for an experiment he has been meaning to pursue. On his way to the morgue, he passes the chief of medicine, Michael Stamford, who asks, “Everything all right there, Holmes?”

“Quite all right,” Sherlock answers. Perhaps not as sincerely as he’d intended, given how Stamford frowns. “I’d be better if you had anything of interest for me.”

“Can’t say that I do. And I’d say I wish I did, except that would mean wishing something awful on someone else, wouldn’t it?”

As one of Sherlock’s oldest acquaintances and one of the few souls on whom Sherlock would waste pleasantries, Sherlock says, “Ha, I suppose it would. Then let us say you made no such wish and keep your conscience clean.” Stamford laughs and thanks him but continues to look concerned over Sherlock's well-being.

Sherlock assures him again that there is no need for concern and brushes off Stamford's attempts to invite him for a meal. He continues on his way, but before he turns the corner Stamford calls, “You’re a good man, Holmes. I've always thought so.”

Sherlocks turns back towards him, surprised and unclear from where such a sentiment could’ve derived, but Stamford has himself already turned and begun walking away. The matter being ultimately inconsequential, Sherlock puts it from his mind and continues on his way.

Later he is returned to Baker Street, on his back on the drawing room floor and his violin loose under his chin. There is still assorted gore under his fingernails from his unsatisfying experiment.

Adler, recently returned from one of her many trips, is at the desk writing up her notes for that whole business with Lord St. Simon's bride Sherlock had wrapped up before Adler left.

“What do you think of ‘The Matter of the Missing Bride’?” Adler asks.

Sherlock doesn’t answer. His excursion to Bart’s was insufficient to ward off his black mood and he has no interest in engaging in conversation. Particularly this one—the publishers and Adler will fight over the title for weeks and Sherlock has never wanted any part of that nonsense.

Adler huffs and goes back to writing.

Eyes closed, in his mind’s eye he reads over her first story of him, the words as clear as if he were reading them on paper. His first true glance of himself through someone else's eyes. He finds himself returning to it, again and again.

Convinced, in some way, that if he searches enough, he’ll understand the black emptiness within himself and how to fill it.

But as ever there are no answers, and he irritably waves his hand through the air, dispelling the words from his mind.

He needs _work_.

There is nothing else.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The nights John manages to sleep, he dreams of gunfire, constant and deafening. He dreams of heat, oppressive and suffocating and so heavy it's a physical force pressing him into the ground. He dreams of sand, irritating and rough, of blood, and of biting, blinding pain. His heartbeat echoes in his ears. He can feel the metal barrel of his gun in his hand and smell death and violence in the air. He is so fucking tired. He’d give anything for just one night of peace—to escape the war for just one night.

The first note he almost misses, the sound pure and striking and utterly incongruous. The second is louder and quickly followed by a rapid succession of notes.

John stills.

The war moves around him, with men and women in ragged camo continuing to shout and aim and fall. But they’re muted, the sounds muffled and the vibrant details rapidly washing out.

The relief is so immediate, so overpowering, that John nearly collapses where he stands.

That’s a violin, isn’t it? John isn’t a classical music type of guy, so he can’t place the song. “You’re so unsophisticated, Johnny,” Harry would laugh when John was ignorant about whatever high-brow topic he knew for a fact she’d only read up on the night before to impress Claire. Back when Harry was still trying to make it work. Back when she cared. It feels like a lifetime ago. The thought of Harry deep in the bottle stings less than usual, cushioned as he is by the steady rise and fall of the music.

It’s so... _pretty_. His mind keeps circling on  _pretty_ , but that doesn't even scratch the surface of the emotions welling up inside him.

Maybe she was right about this high-brow stuff after all.

John doesn’t remember when he started walking. He knows where to go even though he doesn’t know where he’s going. He barely notices when the sand under his heavy boots becomes pavement becomes cobblestone becomes hardwood flooring becomes soft rug under his suddenly bare feet. When the heavy heat becomes heavy fog becomes the warmth of a crackling fireplace. When the pain fades from his leg and his shoulder and his heart.

He just listens to the music. To its crispness and liveliness. The promise of adventure and excitement and happiness and everything John has ever wanted. His heartbeat calms, his shoulders lose their omnipresent tension, and he nearly smiles.

Christ almighty, when was the last time John smiled and meant it?

The nightmare fades and John is home. He knows it with more surety than he has ever known anything before. He is home, and for once he sleeps soundly, deeply—dreamlessly, but for the violin notes playing in the peripherals of his mind, an impenetrable shield against the shadows that might otherwise creep back in.

The peace lasts until the exact moment that John opens his eyes.

“What the—” he gasps, jerking violently but unable to move further.

The woman straddling his chest, her thighs pinning his arms securely to his side and her hand holding a penknife to his throat, clicks her tongue and shakes her head. “I would be still, darling, or you are liable to do yourself grave injury.”

Though for the life of him he couldn’t say why, despite the immediate threat and the fact that he’s in a wholly unfamiliar bedroom, he finds himself calming. Perhaps it’s the relief of finally having a tangible enemy after months of having only his own mind to fight.

Perhaps it’s not that at all and just his mind blanking on how to react to the situation at hand.

Everything about the woman is sharp and dangerous. Her eyes are unkind and her thighs against his sides are unyielding and her hand holding the penknife is steady. He’s fairly certain he could throw her off without undue injury to himself (and he’d be completely confident in his ability to do so if not for his bum leg). But, well, she’s also—

Well, she’s also _naked_. Just a thin dressing gown around her shoulders that does more to emphasise her nudity than conceal it. She is beautiful. Slender, with wide shoulders and strong thighs against his sides and her breasts bound tightly with cloth but unmistakably there and right above his nose. Her hair is cut short and gelled flat. She holds the penknife like a woman used to threatening men with severe bodily harm.

In his old life, John would already be half in love. But John isn’t that person anymore, and his eyes dart between the ceiling and her face and absolutely no lower and he’s almost relieved she’s got his arms pinned because otherwise he honestly doesn’t know what he’d do with his hands.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” he manages, the words still sleep-rough. He swallows, feeling the press of the penknife against his jugular.

“Aren’t you curious,” the woman says. She smiles, sharper than the penknife. “If you hadn’t gathered, that is the precise question whose answer I am awaiting with baited breath from _you_.”

“Yeah, you can keep on waiting. I'll take an explanation, first, thanks,” John says. “Let's start with: Just how did I get here?”

She tilts her head and studies him with an intensity and harsh intelligence that John does not care for in the slightest. Then apparently reaching a decision, she removes the penknife from his throat to tap against her own cheek, humming thoughtfully to herself. “You really haven’t any idea, do you?” she says. “What a curious morning.” With startling grace she swings off of him and stands, and John quickly scrambles upright himself, not liking her looking down at him. “Are you one of Holmes’, perchance?” She tilts her head towards the bedroom door and shouts, “Holmes!”

But John doesn’t really register the question, too busy finally taking stock of the bizarre bedroom he’s found himself in. There are thick, heavy drapes around the windows and tied to the wooden bedposts, racks of old-fashioned wigs and dresses and suits taking up every spare inch of the room, and the walls are lined with pictures in elaborate frames that look like they belong in his grandparents’ photo albums. There’s a _gramophone_ in the corner, and an oil lamp and candles on the desk and nightstand.

“Holmes!” the woman calls again, her fingers drumming an impatient beat against the bedpost. “For god’s sake, Holmes, if you don’t come here this instant I shall be forced to take drastic measures. Perhaps I’ll write Mycroft.”

John moves to inspect the pictures. The room itself and everything in it has a strange weight, a solidness to the construction that is foreign and yet somehow comforting. He strongly feels that everything he's looking at should be dim and buried in a solid inch of dust, but there’s sunlight through the window and—he runs a finger down the nearest frame—not a speck of dust to be found.

“Have I been kidnapped and stowed away in a fucking museum?” John demands, just as the bedroom door swings open and a man breezes in. John isn’t sure whether he or the man is more startled by the other’s presence.

The man has slicked-back midnight hair, a sharp nose and sharper cheekbones, and is dressed in loose lounge pants and a dressing gown tied tightly around his narrow waist. A violin dangles carelessly from one hand. He is an achingly classic beauty. While this could just be the fact that John's adrenalin is running high and it’s been so long that John doesn’t even _remember_ sex talking, it is taking an inordinate amount of willpower to not simply say to hell with whatever is going on and make a valiant attempt to climb this man like a tree. The man who has probably kidnapped him, or at least helped to kidnap him, for reasons John can’t fathom. But it’s difficult to give that knowledge proper weight given the unexpected and sudden reignition of John’s libido.

The man has not even blinked at the woman’s nudity but he examines John with an intensity that makes John’s ears burn. Up to this point John had been fairly certain that he was not the naked person in this room, but even he is having doubts and actually glances down at himself to double check.

An almost boyishly delighted grin slowly lights the man’s face. It turns his untouchable beauty into the sort of beauty that John’s fingers itch to touch. The argument being posed by his libido instantly increases in insistence (and appeal).

“A doctor,” the man breathes. “Better yet, an _army_ doctor. Adler, you should not have.”

The woman quirks an eyebrow. “Just as well, Holmes, because I most certainly did not.”

“Why in heavens not? I would’ve said this is the greatest kindness you have ever seen fit to bestow upon me.”

“Then not only did I _not_ , but I would never.”

“Then I shall disregard my momentary impulse to reevaluate the esteem with which I hold you.”

“I’ll cry myself to sleep, rest assured,” she says.

John turns from one to the other during their rapid back-and-forth, gaping. Then the man turns to him. “You’re not a client, are you?” he asks, before swiftly answering himself, “No, no. Of course you’re not. But you _are_ here for a reason, Doctor…?”

“John Watson,” he answers on reflex. Then, “Sorry, what's happening?”

“Before you think me inexcusably rude, allow me to introduce myself, though I would venture that if you are here you are well aware of who I am,” the man says.

“Since when do you care what anyone thinks of you?” the woman murmurs, but the man ignores her in favour of holding out his hand. “Sherlock Holmes, at your service.” John, also on reflex, shakes the man’s hand. John doesn’t know if it’s him or the man, bafflement or something else, that causes the handshake to linger a moment too long.

“And this here is my unfortunate—”

“ _Invaluable_ ,” she interjects.

“—biographer and accidental housemate, Adler.”

A beat of silence.

“Sherlock Holmes,” John repeats.

“Indeed,” the man says, beaming.

“And…” John turns to the woman. “Mr Irving Adler.”

“Quite,” the woman says.

The man says, “Now that that is settled, pray tell: how may I be of service, Doctor Watson?”

John takes a deep breath. He has often been told that he has something of a temper. He doesn’t like to think of himself as an angry bloke; he know for a fact he is an entirely even-tempered man who simply is far too often pushed beyond the limits of reason.

There will be a reasonable explanation for all of this. He takes another deep breath and unclenches his fists through sheer force of will. He can’t seem to get his body to relax from its defensive stance, but one thing at a time. Isn’t that what Ella told him, monologuing at him because he wouldn’t speak or lift his gaze from the carpet? John hadn’t said more than five words to her, but she must’ve had his file, because she’d kept returning to anger management techniques. Deep breaths, count to 10, all that rot.

Well. He can bloody well count to 10, can’t he?

The woman and man are staring at him now, the former like he’s a circus animal failing to do anything clever and her interest is rapidly waning and the latter like he’s already witnessing the best performance he’s ever seen.

John gets to three.

Then he snaps, “Why don’t you start by explaining to me what in the _absolute fuck_. That would be just great, thanks.” When neither immediately answers, he continues, “Is this a joke, then? Is this supposed to be _funny_? It’s a bloody laugh riot, isn’t it? What do you want?”

“You continue to ask questions that I believe would make infinitely more sense coming from myself or Holmes,” the woman says.

John has had just enough of her, thanks. He turns to the man and says, “Who put you up to this?

“Put us up to _what_ , pray?” the woman asks, at the same time the man, sounding sincerely concerned, begins, “Doctor—”

But John can’t stop the flow of words, even though he's presumably talking over their attempts to answer him. “So—what? I wake up in the company of my childhood hero and I’m supposed to—what? Play along? Right, fine. Sure. I can do that. Lots I've always wanted to say to you both. Hey, Mr Definitely the Real Sherlock Holmes, here’s a thought: lay off the cocaine and morphine, you absolute _moron_. Here’s another, this one’s for you, Ms Irving Adler: you’re not fooling _anyone_ , you enjoy the cases as much as Sherlock. And your titles are shite, try to have some creativity, huh? Oh! Here’s a good one: historians have written _dissertations_ speculating that you’re both gay and spent the time between cases hate fucking each other. I’ve always wondered if they were right, and, well, this is my big chance, isn’t it? Any comments?”

John looks around, trying to spot—oh, who knows? A camera? Someone peeking around a corner and laughing? But there’s only the man, looking fascinated, and the woman, looking torn between astonishment and amusement.

“Doctor,” the man begins again.

But again John cuts him off. “Who arranged this, damn you both? Was it—was it...” But then John stops, because there is no end to that sentence.

John doesn’t _have_ anyone left.

Certainly no one who both knows him well enough to know his preoccupation with Sherlock Holmes and would go to this trouble for—what? A laugh?

Not Harry, who during their single awkward get together since his return gave him a stiff hug and pushed the smartwatch and her number on him with an order to _Keep in touch, Johnny_ and couldn’t mask her relief when lunch was over and they were both free to part ways. Not good old Mike Stamford, fat and happy and so good-natured and well-adjusted it set John’s teeth on edge. Most of his buddies from Afghanistan were still posted overseas or else didn’t make it home, and those that did were in no better shape than John. His parents have been dead since he was at university. He’d be hard pressed to even name a member of his extended family. The rugby lads, the girlfriends, the boyfriends, the fellow residents and doctors and nurses—they were from somebody else’s life.

But someone arranged all of this. Someone went to patently absurd lengths to dump him in a room perfectly suited for Victorian London with a man calling himself Sherlock Holmes and a woman calling herself Irving Adler. And if this isn’t just a joke in remarkably poor taste arranged by someone close to John, then—well.

Who arranged this?

John hasn’t half a clue what’s going on, so he holds tight to his anger because he’d rather that burn whiter and hotter than deal with the growing fear and humiliation creeping over him.

He shoves past the man, out of the bedroom and into a—drawing room, just as elaborately arranged as the other room. There are outdated scientific posters covering the walls and outdated reference books on the shelves. There’s a pipe rack, and an ivory box on the mantelpiece, and a bearskin hearthrug in front of the fireplace, and glass laboratory equipment holding liquids of various colour and consistency on every remaining available surface, and more candles and gas lighting. For Christ’s sake, he can see a _gasogene_ in the corner.

Oh god, he was drugged, wasn’t he?

He can feel the man hovering in the doorway behind him. There aren’t many photos of the real Sherlock Holmes around, but the bloke is a dead ringer. So, well done whoever-the-hell. John spent a not inconsiderable amount of his formative years considering those few photos of Sherlock Holmes. And he instinctively—absurdly—wants to hear the man out, just because his face is even better in real life and does funny things to John’s stomach. John wants to do a lot of other things to the man involving wine and a bed, but that part of John has been dead and silent for so long now that it damned well isn't getting the reins now. Especially since this man could be a murderer for all John knows.

“Doctor Watson,” the man says.

“ _No_ ,” John says. He has had enough of this and he is leaving before he can be either murdered or persuaded into doing something ridiculous. And if the man or woman attempt to stop him, well, that would be damned stupid of them. John may not be good for much these days but he can break every bone in a man’s body while naming them, thank you very much.

John stomps towards what appears to be the way to the front door but pauses at the top of the stairs. He huffs, his left hand clenching and unclenching, and turns back towards the lunatics, both of them still watching him. “Where in the hell is my cane?” he demands.

“Unless it’s in your pocket I don’t believe you brought one,” the woman says.

“Do you need one?” the man asks.

“I never leave the flat without it,” John grudgingly admits. “I _can’t_.”

The man studies him again, a strange glint in his eyes, with the same kind of intensity that kind of makes John want to punch him in the face, but mostly makes him back to back the other man into a wall and kiss him until neither of them can breathe. “One moment,” the man says, swiftly heading into another room and just as quickly returning with a handsome, mahogany cane with an elaborate silver figure on top. He holds it out to John. “Take mine, if you require one,” he says.

“Christ,” John says. “Did you rob an antique shop?” But he takes the cane all the same. It’s just as heavy as it looks. He manages a grudging, “Thanks, mate,” without bothering to overthink whether he should be sparing any pleasantries for his maybe-kidnappers who may intend to be his murderers, before turning around and trudging down the stairs.

“What a funny little man,” he hears the woman say just as he flings open the front door.

He makes it one step.

“Bloody _Christ_ ,” he says, with feeling.

The scene around him is right out one of those documentaries of Victorian England that Harry liked to sigh over, like the backwards technology and morals were romantic. Gas lamps and horse-drawn carriages and every last man, woman, and child in period clothing. Not _one_ car in sight. Not one mobile. Not one screen. Everything smells like horse and piss and fog. He closes his eyes, takes another fortifying deep breath, and then glances at the building from which he’s just exited.

221b, of course.

He looks up; the woman is studying him through the upstairs window. He doesn’t see the man, but he hears hurried footsteps.

Right.

Fine.

No, not fine. But John has dealt with worse.

This is a dream, isn’t it? Has to be, except everything is too _sharp_ , too real. John stumbles a bit on the uneven cobblestones and scrapes his palm steadying himself against the building. The pain is slight but unmistakable. Not a dream.

Determined to escape this madness, John picks a direction and sets a fast, angry pace. He hasn’t even reached the end of the first street before the man has caught up with him and fallen into easy step besides him. John refuses to acknowledge him and feels his anger burn whiter with each step that passes during which the man apparently takes no issue with being ignored.

John turns onto another street and doesn’t spot a single seam in this absurd facade. Two more blocks, and he demands, “What’s your name?”

“Sherlock Hol—”

“Yes, I know that’s who you’re pretending to be for god knows what reason. What’s the name you were born with?”

“I am loathe to disappoint you, my good, strange doctor, but the answer remains the same, I assure you.”

John huffs and keeps stomping forwards. The man doesn't pursue the conversation, apparently content to speak only when spoken to. The world around him continues to hover just on the cusp of familiarity—London, yes, but not _his_ London. Another few blocks here and random turns there, and if John doesn’t see a mobile soon he’ll—he’ll—he will cross that bloody bridge when he comes to it, is what he’ll do.

The third time John sees, from the corner of his eye, the man reach into his pocket, retrieve a pocket-watch that must’ve been stolen from the same museum as the cane, study the face while humming to himself, and then re-pocket it, John has had quite enough.

“Boring you, am I?”

“On the contrary. I am quite enthralled,” the man says. “Just concerned my time is off. What time do you have, if I may ask?”

John should tell this man to go bugger himself, but reflex takes over again. “Half past nine,” he says.

“Interesting,” the man says. “That’s the time I have, as well.”

John won’t give the man that satisfaction of asking just why a perfectly functioning watch is interesting. He just keeps his angry pace and tries to quell his rising panic as street after street passes and modern London— _his_ London—continues to elude him.

John keeps marching and the man keeps following, until they reach a railway bridge on Fleet Street near Ludgate Hill that John knows for a fact hasn’t existed for at least 20 years and it’s just _too much_. He presses his hand against the bridge wall and tries to stop his head from spinning.

If it’s not a dream, and if it cannot possibly be real life, where does that leave him? He’s never felt so sober in his life and in his experience hallucinations are neither so logical nor so historically accurate. He could simply be going insane.

Or...well.

His fingers spasm against the bridge wall and it’s two aborted attempts before he can bring his hand, trembling even more than usual, to gingerly press against the base of his skull.

He hears the man’s sharp indrawn breath, but from a distance. John ignores him in favour of reassuring himself that all he feels is intact skin and hair—not...

It's not _conclusive_ , though. If he _had_...if this _is_ —

“What year was it yesterday?” the man asks.

John’s spiralling thoughts grind to a halt. He blinks once, twice. John lowers his arm and turns to the man, who appears expectant.

After an extended silence, John says, “What?”

The man says, “You know the streets of London but you do not know what’s on them. You made deliberate decisions at each intersection, nodded to yourself at the street names, but grew unsure after turning on the street; you frowned, slowed, and your limp became more pronounced. You’re not seeing what you expect to see. Then your quick pace returned, only for this cycle to repeat at the next intersection. You could be familiar via a study of maps or a secondhand account, but if the former were true you would not have expectations of what’s on the street and if the latter surely the account would’ve better prepared you. Your street knowledge, coupled with your accent, mannerisms, appearance, and a few other key details, strongly suggest that you are either a native of London or have spent considerable time here. Your confusion, however, suggests that you have not been here recently. The next question would seem to be: When were you here last? Perhaps before your time overseas, perhaps not since childhood. You’re a man in his thirties, and it is not impossible that in thirty years London has changed enough to warrant your reaction. Not likely—a London in flux should be expected by a native, and advances in technology and changes in fashion are hardly isolated to one locale—but possible. There is other data to consider, however. Your curious comments about museums and antiques. Your strange clothing, while handsome, is not in fashion anywhere of which I am aware. Not to mention your clear familiarity with Adler and myself juxtaposed with your assertion I am a _childhood_ hero of yours. While we appear to be roughly of an age—though I'm likely a few years younger—and I flatter myself to think of myself as a competent detective even at a tender age, the odds of your having knowledge of my childhood exploits is near nonexistent and you specifically cited Adler’s stories, which have only been in publications for ten years. I hardly think childhood heroes are acquired by men in their twenties.” The man finally takes a breath, and John gasps in a breath, too, unaware he'd been holding it while the man talked, faster and faster. “Then, obviously, there is the matter of your watch.”

“My...watch?”

“Indeed,” the man says. “You think people are staring at your limp—you exaggerate the lameness and glare at anyone who looks at you overlong and as they pass by you mouth an angry retort to the comment not one person has yet made. They are not staring at your cane but the hand holding it. More specifically, your wrist, and more specifically still, the device strapped around it. I’ve a thorough knowledge of timepieces—quite useful in my line of work, as I’m sure you can understand, they tell you so much about the individual wearing it—and I’ve never seen its like before. I daresay if I traveled the world this afternoon I would not see its like anywhere. I confess that I would require a much closer study to guess as to how you managed its construction, and I’d be tempted to say it’s not a watch at all. Except,” he once more takes out his pocket-watch and this time turns the face towards John, “For how precisely and admirably it has kept time with mine. I won’t find such a technology anywhere today, and certainly not anytime in the past thirty years. We’re looking for a timeframe, dear doctor. We can with some confidence eliminate the present and the past from consideration. So: Forwards, not backwards. Thus, the question at hand must be: What year was it yesterday?”

John’s mouth had slowly dropped open during this relentless onslaught of observations. It takes too long to realise he’s lightheaded because he was holding his breath again.

“You think I...what? Travelled here from the future?” John manages.

“Hardly,” the man says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “But I think that _you_ believe you have and have gone to impressive lengths to realise your delusion.”

John stares, his mouth working silently for a moment. He looks around—at the _solidness_ of Victorian London around him and the press of people passing by, none of whom are paying them the slightest mind. As if this extraordinary place they are in and the extraordinary thing he has just witnessed are commonplace. “You,” he says, but then he doesn't know how to end that sentence. “That was,” he starts again, except again he doesn't have further than that planned. He rolls his shoulders and keeps looking around but then keeps returning his attention to the man waiting expectantly in front of him. A third attempt, and this one is right to the heart of the matter: “You're Sherlock Holmes.” The man's eyebrows raise. “This is—” _Real_. If this is real, then—“That was brilliant,” he says, lightheaded for reasons nothing to do with his breathing. “Remarkable.”

The man appears both pleased and startled. “Do you think so?”

“Absolutely.” John shakes his head. And it's insane, everything about this is insane, but there's only so much proof a bloke can ignore. “You’re Sherlock Holmes.” He spreads his arms. “This is—my god, this is real. This is—You’re _Sherlock Holmes_.”

“Do you make a habit of stating the obvious and then endlessly repeating it?”

“Only when I’ve just traveled over a hundred years into the past.”

Sherlock appears even more startled for a second, and then his face lights up in a smile. “Indeed,” he says, chuckling.

John is—well, he’s obviously gone entirely round the bend. Because he chuckles too, and feels lighter than perhaps he's ever felt, and he is fairly certain that this is eighteen-ninety-something and he is standing next to _Sherlock Holmes_ and—

This is insane. Even _if_ —and it's a helluva if—he has traveled back in time, is it permanent? How long will he be here? What is he going to _do_? Follow Sherlock Holmes around like a lost puppy? He knows a bit about the period but hardly enough to get by. _Oh god_ , John thinks, his breath coming faster and his mind just repeating that refrain: _Oh god, oh god, oh god.._

It would almost be _preferable_ if—

Sherlocks stops his attempt to check the back of his head again with a hand around his wrist, his attention suddenly focused on a point somewhere past John.

“Behind you, the man in the grey overcoat begging on the corner. A younger gentlemen. He’s clean shaven, his hair uncombed, his fingernails trimmed. He’s wearing only one shoe. There’s a turquoise ribbon peeking out of his pocket. Do you see him? Look, but be casual. Do not draw his attention.”

John does his best to subtly glance over his shoulder, though, as has suddenly occurred to him, it’s difficult to see how John in his jeans and jumper and smartwatch in Victorian England wouldn't draw the eye. Not to mention Sherlock’s hand is still holding his wrist with his arm half-raised in the air. Though it could just be John who’s having difficulty dragging his attention away from that point of contact.

It takes John a moment, still confounded by where— _when_ —he is, but sure enough there's a man precisely as Sherlock described. “Yeah, I see him. What about him?”

“Since following you from Baker Street, he’s the third man I've seen with such a ribbon. Each man wore it in a different place, but the exact same ribbon. Same exact colour. In fact,” Sherlock’s eyes go distant in thought. “I’ve seen eleven such ribbons this month. Different men. Different streets. All beggars. All wearing a turquoise ribbon.”

“Maybe it's a new fashion?”

“Possible, though I've yet to hear of it and I take it upon myself to keep abreast of such trends. Very useful knowledge. In addition, there is the fact that two weeks past I was written by a man named Gerhard Stone who professed to be an absolute wreck due to his younger brother, whom he suspected of being in some sort of society of questionable repute. He feared the society’s activities veered into the illegal, given his brother's guarded attitude whenever Mr Stone attempted to question him. After following his brother one afternoon and watching him appear, for all intents and purposes, to be begging on a street corner, Mr Stone seemed to fear more for whether his brother’s behaviour could tarnish his own reputation than whether his brother was in any danger, and frankly the case hadn’t intrigued me and I declined to take it. There had, however, been a single point of interest which stayed with me: Mr Stone had most distinctly noted his brother’s sudden penchant for ribbons of unusual colour.”

A society of beggars? Why does that sound familiar? John frowns and risks another glance back at the man, and then it suddenly clicks: “The amateur mendicant society,” John gasps.

Sherlock’s attention snaps back to John. “Pardon?”

John says. “The amateur—it’s mentioned in Adler’s stories. The last one, in fact. But only in passing. No real details about the case. The amateur—”

“Mendicant society,” Sherlock finishes, his gaze briefly flicking towards the man on the corner and then back. “ _Fascinating_ ,” he says, when his attention is firmly on John.

“So is that what this is, you think? Some sort of society of people playing at being beggars?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Sherlock says. He smiles then, a wild, feral, blindingly joyful smile, and John cannot help the answering grin that stretches across his face even as Sherlock asks, “Do you want to find out?”

John doesn’t hesitate. “Oh, god yes.”

The next several hours are a mad, adrenaline-filled blur up and down London. They trail after a man with a turquoise ribbon, end up _chasing_ another who turns ghost-white at the sight of Sherlock Holmes and takes off, are chased by another—at one point Sherlock makes a few minor adjustments to his clothing, accent, and posture and with a turquoise ribbon lifted from another man’s pocket becomes a beggar on the street with a turquoise ribbon. The man they stole it from tracks them down and makes a threatening move towards Sherlock and John sees red and  _punches him and sprains his wrist_ with barely a thought. The whole thing is insane, absolutely mad, and at the end of the chase they end up, Inspector Lestrade in tow, at a secret luxurious clubhouse hidden in the lower vault of a warehouse, where high society men routinely meet and compete with one another in different dangerous or strange activities, gambling on the outcome. Competing members wear ribbons, of course. And the most recent competition is, of course, to do with begging.

They find Gerhard Stone’s younger brother, George Stone, who falls to his knees before Sherlock and the inspector and swears it was all just a bit of fun, no harm meant, and promises to disband the society if they will let them go without pressing any charges.

Later, before parting ways with Sherlock and John, Inspector Lestrade scratches his head and says, “It’s just as well, I don’t know _what_ I would’ve charged them with. They're mad as hatters but not actually doing anything illegal. Well, yet, I suppose. It was likely just a matter of time.”

Then Lestrade—Detective Lestrade! _The_ Detective Lestrade!—tips his hat at Sherlock with a, “Mr Holmes,” and then at John with a, “Mr Adler. I look forward to reading about this one.” And then he is on his way.

John says, “Did he just...?”

“Not the most observant man, Inspector Lestrade,” Sherlock muses. “And yet, sadly, one of the best Scotland Yard has to offer.” John can only shake his head and following Sherlock back to 221b Baker Street, the both of them grinning at one another the whole way.

They’re a few steps from the door when John can’t hold back anymore—he bursts out laughing, and the sound must set Sherlock off, who starts laughing just as deeply, and they’re both laughing and holding onto each other for support like a couple of drunken fools.

“That was—” John gaps when he can finally draw a breath, “Good lord, that was the craziest thing I’ve ever done.”

“And you travelled here from the future!” Sherlock wheezes, which just sets them both off again. They get surprisingly few stares, but if Sherlock's actual reputation is anywhere near as eccentric as it is in the books—and John is fairly certain, if anything, Adler _downplayed_ his eccentricity—then this must be nothing to see.

Their eyes meet, and they both once more collapse into laughter.

When they’ve finally calmed, John takes a moment to take in the building in front of them. He reaches out and brushes his fingers over the raised building numbers. 221b. It's a museum now—or, well, will one day be, at any rate—because Sherlock Holmes had had enough of a following among historians to get the place preserved as a landmark. John only visited the once, as a boy. He'd wanted to sit in the armchair and imagine he was _then_ and Sherlock Holmes was sitting across from him. But no one had been allowed to touch anything, let alone sit on the furniture, of course, and there were too many other visitors around to pretend it could've been just John and Sherlock. And the whole setup had just been an exhibit, really, since Sherlock Holmes had moved out well before his retirement and taken with him or else disposed of his personal affects, all of which were lost following his death. So it was all just guesses and replicas and framed passages of the books or newspaper clippings. This, though. This is what he'd imagined. No— _better than_.

A light goes on in the window above them. Adler, peeking at them from behind a drawn curtain, her eyebrows raised. John waves to her; if anything, she looks even less impressed.

“You’re Sherlock Holmes,” John says, just because it’s such a wonderful, amazing thing. Because he's nearly entirely certain this is actually happening, and if he repeats that one truth enough without being proven wrong, maybe he’ll get the whole way there.

“Dear me, did you hit your head? I believe we’ve quite exhausted that line of inquiry, doctor.”

John snorts and without thinking gives the other man a light shove. He quickly withdraws his hand and means to apologise, but Sherlock just appears delighted by John's unthinking familiarity.

“And that’s...” John licks his lips and takes a stab in the dark. “Irene Adler. She was never murdered.”

Sherlock joins John in studying Adler, who makes a face at them both. “Yes,” he says, his tone unreadable.

“There is no Irving Adler.”

“On the contrary,” Sherlock says, nodding towards the woman in the window.”There is.”

“Huh,” John says. Apparently losing patience with them, Adler shakes her head and pulls the curtain closed. Still looking at the window, John licks his lips again and says, “So. You and Adler, then. You really are...involved?”

John hadn't actually registered how closely they were standing until he is able to feel Sherlock still. “Is discretion no longer a virtue in the future?”

“Oh.” John tries to tamp down the immediate swell of disappointment. For Christ's sake, he may have just _traveled from the future_. What are his priorities, here? Even if he hadn't, he's just met the man. What did he think was going to happen? “So—you are, then.”

“I said no such thing.”

“So...?” John trails off, not following.

A heavy pause, then Sherlock clears his throat and says, “Such an arrangement would suit neither of our inclinations.” John is fascinated to see his ears have turned a little red.

“Right,” John says. And then his mind catches up with what Sherlock just said. And he says, “ _Oh_. Right. Right. Good.”

John fully faces Sherlock, who appears to be having difficult looking John in the eye—but once he does, they spend an absurdly long time staring at one another. John's heart rate picks up, and if this _is_ Victorian London, and Christ almighty but John really really thinks it is,, then what John is pretty sure he’s about to do is incredibly—unbelievably—ill-advised. John is, however, absolutely sure it would be worth it. He leans closer, and Sherlock’s eyes widen—

And though John inwardly groans, maybe it’s for the best that the front door opens and Adler, with a huff, ushers them both inside while grumbling under her breath about idiots who would be lost without her.

“How long?” Sherlock asks, after they've followed Adler up the seventeen stairs. John hadn't counted them on his angry way out—and how can it only be hours ago that John was here for the first time when it feels like coming home?—and experiences a thrill at doing so now. Almost as large a thrill as he's getting from the very fact of Sherlock's very existence.

“Oh, you know how it is,” Adler says. She briefly ducks out of the room and returns with a bundle of clothing. “Perhaps one week. Perhaps seven months. Though I imagine it could be five years and you wouldn't notice. You realise you've never asked before?”

“I was being polite,” Sherlock sniffs.

“You're never polite to me.”

“Perhaps because this is your reaction to my taking an interest,” Sherlock says.

“Oh, you've taken an interest, all right,” Adler says. “I somehow doubt it's in my comings and goings, however.”

John finally notices the suitcases by the stairs and figures out what they're talking about. “You're leaving?” he asks, surprised and not a little guilty. It's not because of him, is it? For how he'd acted earlier? Not that he hadn't had good reason, mind. But, well, he did just show up in her bedroom, unexpected and unannounced, and then proceed to act like an utter arse. And then accompany Sherlock on a case, effectively taking over her job without so much as a by-your-leave. “It's not because—”

“Oh, please,” Adler says dismissively. “Don't give yourself too much credit, Doctor. In fact, give yourself none until you’ve earned it. Did you take notes?” She attempts to push the clothing onto John, but Sherlock immediately intercepts her.

“Adler,” he says, warning in his voice. “Do not presume he has any interest in your little games.”

“Like it will be a hardship for either of you,” she scoffs.

“Doctor Watson—”

“Is standing right here, thanks, and can speak for himself,” John says, moving around to stand between them. No one fights his battles for him, not even Sherlock Holmes himself. He hesitates, and then adds, “Provided one of you lot tell me what we're talking about.”

“You see, Holmes?” Adler says. “He can speak for himself.”

“...My apologies, Doctor,” Sherlock says, sounding so genuinely contrite that any irritation John may have felt vanishes and he gives Sherlock an encouraging smile. Clearly bolstered, Sherlock steps back and throws himself into an armchair, allowing John to face Adler, who uses the distraction to push the clothing on John. Which leaves John with an armful of clothing and no explanation.

“Your notes...?” Adler prompts, as if the prior interruption had not occurred.

“Notes?”

“Notes,” she repeats, slowly like one would to a child. “Of whatever occupied you both today?”

“We settled that little matter of concern to Gerhard Stone,” Sherlock says.

“Well, aren’t you showing all kinds of interest towards matters for which you'd previously displayed none.” While Sherlock hunches further into his armchair, she turns to John and says, “Good heavens, are you daft? Why are you just standing there? Go dress!”

John looks at the suit in his hands. And then to Sherlock, who is apparently too busy suddenly sulking to offer any help. “Why, exactly, am I doing this?”

“Because Irving Adler does not wear whatever nonsense you're currently wearing, and if you are to stay here and be my alibi, you must dress the part.” Adler pushes him towards her bedroom while explaining, “I have business out of the country that is preferably completed discreetly. At absolute best completed in complete secrecy. Though the why and how of your sudden appearance remains a mystery—one to which I believe not even you have an answer—I am not one to let a fortuitous advantage slip by. If you play the part of 'Irving Adler,' then no one need know or suspect me to have been out of the country. And even if you did not so clearly wish to stay, you even more clearly have no where else to go. Stay here until I return at the least, and more ideally, for as long as our arrangement remains advantageous to us both.”

John wants nothing more than to make her sign a _blood contract_ promising he can have this, but at the same time the bloody presumptuous _cheek_ of her. “And just how do you know I have no where else to be?”

She just looks at him.

Fine. Okay. Even if they were in his London, he would have to concede that one. “How am I supposed to pass as you? We look and sound nothing alike!”

“If I may ask, how many times today did someone mistake you for me?”

Well...at least five, not even counting Lestrade, now that Adler mentions it.

At his resentful silence, she continues, “The man following Sherlock Holmes is Irving Adler. No one need actually look at that man to know it is him. That is a simple fact. The only one who would notice is Sherlock Holmes himself, and he already knows. Trust me, Doctor, people see what they want to see.”

John still hesitates, standing firm despite her continued attempts to bodily pushes him towards the bedroom's dressing screen. She stops and sighs; leaning forward, she adds, soft and with clear reluctance, “I think Holmes would like it, very much, if you stayed awhile.”

John crumbles and ends up being the dressing screen and emerges in a three-piece suit and a bowler hat. He can't remember the last time he felt so—formal. Even though it's what half the men on the street had been wearing. He tugs on the waistcoat and adjusts his shirtsleeves and feels—put together. Sharp. Actually quite all right. He thinks he could get used to this kind of clothing, especially when he emerges from the bedroom and Sherlock's eyes immediately darken at the first sight of him.

Adler emerges not long after in a floral dress with a high neck and flared skirt, as well as a long blonde wig. As she bustles around the room, gathering her things, she instructs, “Take lots of notes of everything you see and hear, even if you don't think it's important. If you forget something Holmes will have remembered it, but then I'll have to catch him in a talkative mood, and why torture us both? Keep Holmes busy but do try not to let him get too sure of himself. If his head gets any larger he won't fit through the front door. You may lodge in my room, if you'll be needing two rooms.” John hears a strangled noise and genuinely isn't sure whether it came from him or Sherlock. She continues as if she heard nothing, “But if upon my return my room is in any sort of disarray, any of my things missing, or my personal affects rummaged through, I'll flog you myself and quite enjoy doing so. When Billy or any of the other boys come by, you're to make sure they take their shoes off at the door and offer them a bite to eat. Make sure they wash their hands and faces before leaving—they're moan about it, but you ignore them and their wide eyes. They're brats, the lot of them. Any questions?”

“Yeah—”

“Oh, you'll be fine. Pick up my suitcase, take my arm, and walk me out.”

John has really had enough of being ordered about by her, but, well, he has agreed to her arrangement. Which only entails his dearest fantasy coming true. There is that. So he does as she instructed but can't help but ask, more to himself than to her, “Why am I doing this?” as he opens the front door for her.

“So people will talk,” she says. Sure enough, they get more than a few considering glances, particularly when they stop before the hansom and she leans forwards to kiss his cheek. Before pulling away, she hisses in his ear, “If you damage him in any way, I'll have you killed.” Then she pulls away with a wide smile plastered on her face and holds out her hand for him to help her into the hansom. He's too dazed by a sudden realisation to react to her threat (absurdly unnecessary threat that it was, he would _die_ first) and returns her wave good-bye by rote as the hansom pulls away.

Irving Adler was by most accounts a promiscuous scoundrel, but towards the late eighteen nineties he appeared to become taken with and faithful to a mysterious and unidentified blonde-haired woman. Is _he_...? Does that make _him_...?

When John returns inside, his thoughts jumbled, Sherlock is standing by the window with his violin. An older woman is setting out a tray of tea. “That will be all, Mrs Hudson, thank you,” Sherlock says. The woman—Mrs Hudson!—smiles fondly at John, without seeming at all bothered or surprised by John's presence, and then takes her leave.

“It does not matter what she promised you or you to her. You are under no obligation to stay,” Sherlock says.

“I know,” John says, and also knows that it is not his imagination that Sherlock relaxes when John steps further into the room rather than turning away. He takes a cuppa and settles into a seat with a contented sigh, only too happy to have both; he is suddenly exhausted, the events of the day finally catching up. He takes a sip and lets out a happy hum.

As if the moment were not already perfect enough, Sherlock asks, “What do you think of the violin?”

“I adore it,” John says. “At any hour of the day.”

Sherlock smiles softly at the floor. Then he closes his eyes and raises his instrument and begins to play.

One hour later, Billy the Irregular shows up with the cane John had borrowed from Sherlock. John gives him one of the biscuits left by Mrs Hudson and makes him wash his hands.

And so begins John's strange and wonder new life—a surreal whirlwind of thrilling or puzzling or intrigue-filled cases punctuated by quiet moments of achingly lovely domesticity, the likes of which John has never before known or experienced. Hadn't known _possible_.

John would gladly put any thought of _this_ present not being _his_ present forever from his mind—dismiss that as a mad, drawn-out fantasy world and this as the normal reality—except that certain differences keep creeping in, inescapable, and John cannot help but recognise and comment on them and then be momentarily thrown from this dream that is more lifelike than life.

Seated in front of a prospective client or during a conversation with a Scotland Yard inspector or while questioning witnesses and suspects, John will unthinkingly mention an event that has yet to occur. When Sherlock brings John to someone in need to medical assistance—which happens with increasing frequency; in fact, John seems to acquire a roster of house patients before he's quite realised what is happening—John will reach for or yell for a medicine or piece of equipment yet to be invented. (He makes do—he didn't always have what he needed in Afghanistan, either, and if he damn well didn't let a man down then he damned well wouldn't do so now.) Sometimes they'll go for a walk or to the baths or to the opera and John will marvel at something amazing to him and clearly commonplace to Sherlock. Sometimes John struggles with having Mrs Hudson wait on him, or coming across servants and antiquated, backwards attitudes and mores. John has a mild heart attack when he realises that there are no James Bond movies—or any movies—or trash TV or mobile phones or cars or _modern medicine_.

And then Sherlock will lightly touch John's shoulder or elbow or side to draw his attention, or hover over John as he attends to his patient, or sit besides John on the settee, feet on the cushion seat and his arms around his legs and his chin on his knees, and command, “Tell me how it is in your future,” and ask question after question, his focus on John unwavering.

John would be irritated or embarrassed, sure that Sherlock is mocking him, but the other man approaches him with nothing but honest curiosity and is always so genuinely delighted when John not only has an answer, but sometimes what amounts to an entire dissertation, that John is almost eager for the questions to begin.

Sometimes Sherlock and John stand too close. Sometimes their eyes meet and lock for a moment too long and sometimes their touches linger. Sometimes John draws out his explanations when Sherlock's gaze seems fixed on his mouth, and sometimes John strongly suspects that Sherlock does the same when regaling John about one of his past cases—John himself is endlessly captivated by the cases only referenced in passing in Adler's books, or not mentioned at all. The only thing John truly hates about living in this time is that it is _this_ time; and now that the reality of this time has sunk in, he's lost the courage to make a more deliberate move, and it seems doubtful that Sherlock will.

The one part of John's time that Sherlock truly appears to detest is it's view on smoking and recreational drug use. On one memorable day, John systemically finds and throws away Sherlock's cigarettes and pipes and drugs and launches a campaign to convince him to stop those terrible habits and prevent him from replenishing his supplies. John doesn’t make much progress until the day after, when he's stalked by three frightening men in dark suits, who manage to catch him off guard and stuff him in the back of a hansom (not before he knocks one of them out cold, thanks much) and bring him to a large, cold manor and seat him before a large, cold man with thinning hair and a sour expression. John's mouth goes dry when he recognises him. Mycroft Holmes offers John a large sum of money to leave and never return (to which John replies, “No thanks”) and then an even larger sum of money to keep him abreast of Sherlock's every move (to which John replies, “Well, you can go right to hell.”). And when John refuses to budge, Mycroft summarily dismisses him and John is dragged back into a hansom and kicked out a few blocks from Baker Street. John would have a lot to say about Mycroft Holmes, except later that day he's suddenly got the Irregulars and Scotland Yard and Sherlock's own suppliers on his side in his effort to keep Sherlock clean. “Your brother's an interesting fellow,” is all he'll say when Sherlock asks.

Adler comes and goes as she sees fit, but John stays, helping Sherlock to cases and writing copious notes that turn into narratives to which both Sherlock and Adler turn their noses up because they're too _sentimental_. Which is rubbish, as far as John's concerned; the stories have the exact correct amount of sentiment and Sherlock and Adler would admit the same if they weren't such arses. Adler stops writing her own stories; in fact stops accompanying Sherlock on his cases altogether, which would've made John sick with guilt if not for the fact that both she and Sherlock appear happier that way. Adler offered to take John's stories to her publisher, but John declines. These stories are for him—no, they're for Sherlock, whom he sometimes catches sitting cross-legged on the sitting room floor, the box in which John keeps his manuscripts in front of him, and sifts through the pages with a soft smile on his face.

John grows accustomed to answering to “Mr Adler” when they're out and giving sufficient if vague answers to inquiries regarding his blonde-haired paramour. Sherlock never contributes to these conversations but hovers close by, occasionally snorting to himself in amusement when John lays it on rather thick.

Some nights John can’t sleep and the old nightmares threaten to drag him back—and, like clockwork the violin serenade starts up, and John can take a deep breath and follow the music back home.

Life is more perfect than John could've ever imagined possible, if he ignores the lingering dread undercutting every single moment that every day since he arrived has been too good to be true.

When Adler asks John about the future, on a random Wednesday afternoon in September, it is the first and only time she takes an interest. John has never been able to fathom what motivates her. Still can't actually tell whether she and Sherlock enjoy each other's company, despite _living with_ them. She corners him, while Sherlock is out, and asks, “How did you manage it?”

John startles at her approach, always a little on edge around her. “Manage...?”

Adler sighs, like John is the stupidest man alive. But before he can angrily retort, she says. “To travel here from the future.”

“...You,” John blinks rapidly. He actually takes a step back. “You actually believe that I traveled here from the future?”

“Did you not?” she asks.

John doesn't think about it. Nothing good would come of thinking about it. He says, “I don't know.”

“Here's what I know: You're not _clever enough_ to have come up with the future you tell Holmes about. And you're not getting your information from someone else. So tell me how you did it.”

“ _I don't know_ ,” John snaps. “And I certainly don't see what it matters after all this time.”

“It matters to me,” she insists. “You must know something. What is the last thing you recall before coming here?”

“If I tell you, will you leave me be?” John asks. At her stiff nod, he quickly recounts everything he can recall from that last day. When he's finished, she smiles and says, completely sincere, “Thank you,” as if he's actually handed her an answer.

John says, “I answered your question, so tell me: Why does it matter to you, anyhow?”

For a moment, John doesn't think she'll respond. Then: “This time suits me ill. From what I've heard, your time sounds...more accommodating.”

Before John can react to that astonishing statement, she leaves (she never, in fact, returns). She believes him. She believes that John isn't from this time—if for no reason than that John doesn't have the imagination for anything else to be true. And, frankly, she's absolutely right.

John has never once attempted to find out how he got here. He hadn't wanted to know, scared that if he found out, somehow this amazing life could be taken away as easily as swiftly and mysteriously was given. But, Christ almighty, what is he _doing_ here?

John collapses down into his armchair and doesn't realise he's started to shake until he hears his teeth start to chatter and the old aches in his arm and leg flare up. He clutches the armrests and desperately tries to breathe through his rising, overwhelming panic. He keeps raising a hand to touch the back of his head before returning his grip to the armrests.

He doesn't know how long he sits there until there's a clatter and hurried steps and then Sherlock is there, kneeling before him, warm and close. He frames John's face with his long-fingered hands and presses their foreheads together. “Breathe, John,” he commands.

It's the first time he's called John by his first name instead of Watson or Doctor, and the surprise more than anything is enough to shock John into gulping in a lungful of air. But the shaking and aches and terror persist. Sherlock has the prettiest eyes, John thinks, somewhat hysterically.

“Doctor Watson,” Sherlock says. “ _John_.”

“I can't—this is too—it can't be real,” John babbles, his breath hitching, overcome with shame at his own cowardice. “I couldn't face—and it's everything I've ever wanted and I don't _get_ everything I want and I'm a coward. I couldn't face my life so I ran away to this—this _fantasy_ and—”

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock says a third time. Then, slow and deliberate and unmistakeable: “ _You are alive_.”

John takes several shuddering breaths. Then he gasps out, “Do you promise?”

“I swear it. I swear to you. I am real, and so are you. And you know I do not tell untruths. I swear it, you understand. Breath in and out, John. Focus.” When his shaking has finally subsided, Sherlock repeats, “I swear it on my life,” and John—

John believes him.

“I don’t know how I got here,” John says quietly and then admits, like the cowardly thief he is, “But I don't want to go back.” 

“I don’t want you to,” Sherlock answers, and then it's Sherlock's turn to crumble, his hands now shaking against John's face. “Please—John, I beg of you. Don't return. Stay here. You are the bravest and best man I know. I don't care where you're from. I don't care when. We'll continue as we are and when you're tired of this life we'll retire to this lovely little cottage I have in Sussex. I'll raise bees and you'll write books and we'll be quite content, I swear it. Please, John.”

If breaking down himself is distasteful, seeing Sherlock do so is unbearable. John wouldn't call it confidence that suddenly settles in his bones and makes him straighten in his seat. More like sheer bloody stubbornness. “I'm not going anywhere,” he says. Then he grabs Sherlock's collar with both hands and drags the other man forward, closing that last bit of space between them, and kisses him. Sherlock gasps and his hands momentarily flail near John's face before settling reverently on John's shoulders. John just kisses him harder, as thoroughly as he'd wanted to the moment he saw this man, consequences be damned, kisses until they have to break apart or asphyxiate.

John feels his lips stretch into a mad grin, and feels Sherlock grinning, too, and fuck if John knows what twist of fate landed him here but _so help_ whatever twist of fates tries to take him away. “I'm staying right bloody here,” John growls, and Sherlock says, “Who am I to doubt my doctor's word?” And then they don't speak for quite some time.

Later, John will ask, “Bees?”

“Bees,” Sherlock confirms.

“In Sussex?”

“In Sussex.”

“You’re absolutely certain?”

“It’s the last true mystery, my dear John,” Sherlock assures him.

John sighs, “Right, then. Bees in Sussex it is.”

John Watson will always have Sherlock Holmes, and for as long as he wants him, Sherlock Holmes will always have John Watson in return. And if it doesn't matter _when_ , it damned well doesn't matter _where_.

~*~*~*~*~*~

_Epilogue_

When Adler next wakes, there is a woman standing over her clutching a baseball bat. She is rather short and thick, with a shock of dirty blonde curls and wide brown eyes and an unsteadiness that suggests she's been drinking.

“Um,” the woman says.

“Hello,” Adler says, knowing it's best to be impeccably polite when threatened—even when being unconfidently threatened. It usually confounds the person enough to create room to manoeuvre. And, indeed, the woman blinks rapidly and her grip on the bat becomes unsure.

Adler takes the opportunity to sit up and take in the strange bedroom in which she's found herself.

Though she would have never admitted it to Holmes, Adler always believed in the ghost of the Opera House. She may not have been one of those flighty fellows breathlessly gossiping about what the ghost had done the night before, but Adler had spent hours of every day in that house, had performed there for years, and trusts her eyes and ears and senses. There was a ghost in that house, she would swear to it.

Adler believes that no small number of Holmes' unsolved cases can be attributed to equally fanciful creatures or happenstance, and that Holmes' refusal to entertain even the possibility of their being real, likely short of being presented with a fairy's corpse, is the reason those cases will remain unsolved.

Adler may not have initially believed Doctor Watson to be from another time, but when the evidence piled up, she was ready to believe it. _Wanted_ to believe it.

Adler had long been ready to move on. Accompanying Holmes on cases had always just been a way to pass the time; to solidify her presence in his Baker Street, as Mycroft Holmes had asked of her, until she found a true purpose. She was not meant to be a stepping stone for someone else's. The arrangement suited them both, she believes, and the guilt of abandoning Holmes made the arrangement stretch for far longer than Adler had ever intended.

When Watson took over the role like he was born to it, it became only too clear how ill-suited to the role Adler had been.

Adler always thought it was her skin in which she was uncomfortable. But then Watson arrived, and she wondered: What if the problem were, in fact, instead the time?

Following her conversation with Watson, she'd found Holmes, who took one look at her and must have seen a hundred pieces of data pointing towards the fact that she did not mean to return. Adler's throat had suddenly tightened, and she'd thought that if he said one word she would punch him in the jaw. But he had simply held out his hand for her to shake. Then she had gone to St Bart's, and next she knew...here she was.

The woman, meanwhile, has had time to gather herself and snaps, voice rising as she talks, “Listen, if you're a hallucination—well, you're a good one, cheers to me, we should absolutely make out for as long as this lasts. If you're real you'd better tell me who you are and what you're bloody doing in my bloody bedroom right this bloody instance or else get the bloody fuck out of my house before I crack your bloody skull open, you hear?”

Adler can already tell she is going to adore the future. Thoroughly charmed, she nudges the bat away from her face, holds out her hand, and introduces herself, “Adler. And you, my dear?”

Clearly on reflex, the woman says, “Harry.”

Later, after Adler has explained herself and Harry has failed to believe a word she says, Harry nevertheless lets her stay because “I could never resist a pretty face.”

Later, Adler will discover that no stories of Holmes past her own were ever published and become preoccupied with finding Watson's manuscripts. Knowing she cannot truly move on until she has laid this matter to rest.

Later, after breaking into numerous landmarks associated with Holmes, Adler will find the box of manuscripts. There will be a note on top, in Holmes' handwriting, addressed to her.

Later, she'll present the published book to Harry, who cries but is smiling, too, and hugs Adler tight and says, “Thank you. He was just—gone. I was so scared he died alone,” and brushes her fingers across the title:

_The Lost Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_ , as chronicled by Doctor John H. Watson.


End file.
